A handshake heard round the world

2013 December 10

by Rob Meltzer

So, Obama pressed the flesh with Raul Castro. The AP accurately stated that this “caused a furor in Washington,” which of course invokes Chamberlain’s handshake with Hitler. Meanwhile, Obama urged young people today to emulate Mandela. Presumably, Obamacare will be providing pressure cookers and backpacks for just that purpose. Is it possible for Obama to travel abroad without embarrassing this country?

did anyone else find it unsettling that they kept referring to Barry as “his excellency,” which essentially put him on the same level as His Excellency Boni Yayi? I think Barry should have sent Anthony Foxx to represent our government–it could only have been less embarrassing.

I never said anything about stadiums. Rob has a thing about large groups of people, apparently preferring small groups plotting in secret. He says Americans shouldn’t mourn Mandela, but the stadium wasn’t full of Americans. It was full of South Africans. Should they not mourn Mandela? And who is Rob to tell us who we should mourn for?

As for Castro, I’m glad Obama shook his hand – it would have been an international embarrassment if he hadn’t, for starters – and I hope it’s another step toward lifting the embargo and normalizing relations with Cuba. The U.S. Cuba policy has been an obvious failure for 50 years. The disproportionate political power of the Florida Cuban-Americans kept it in place for all this time, but even that math has changed: Obama got 50 percent of the Cuban vote in Florida in 2012. Who else wants to keep this embargo in place on the absurd assumption that the Cuban people, miserable over the disapproval of the U.S., will overthrow their government? Does Rob?

What shocked me was that they hadn’t thought about this ahead of time. What the hell is his staff actually doing? It’s why Obama shouldn’t have gone. He doesn’t understand his job and his staff doesn’t understand theirs. These people can’t be trusted with foreign policy.

NPR slipped this morning and admitted that Mandela had set up a single party dictatorship. So much for democracy. They also tacitly admitted that as south Africa’s economy is taking that it has locked out top economists because they are white. In explaining why xuma got booed, they admitted to the ANC corruption and blingfest. They also acknowledged that Obama and Mugabe are equally beloved. I’m sure those statements will be axed from the rebroadcast. So much for Mandela the democrat. NPR admitted that Mandela was just another totalitarian dictator like Stalin. NPR.

And on Aja this morning, a black dissident who is locked out of the political process in south Africa because he is non ANC said that in terms of ending apartheid that Biko did more by dying than Mandela did by living. He also described the current regime by comparing it to china, that the country is run by mandelas long march cronies. And note that dissidents in south Africa are silenced and speak from overseas. We’re 20 years on now, and democracy still hasn’t come to south Africa. At this point, this is policy. That’s why o’bama should have stayed home and why he shouldn’t have joined the rest of the dictators at this event.

And of course the photo shows him bowing as he did it, as we have come to expect. To a dictator who holds U.S. citizens prisoner unjustly. There was no need. Clinton at least knew how to hold his nose politely to avoid offending Rick’s hothouse sense of “embarrassment” without handing a more embarrassing propaganda coup to Cuban state media.

Hey, I want to go to Cuba, so I’m all for overthrow. I’ve visited just about every Hemingway station of the cross except for Key West and Cuba, so I’ll be glad when democracy reigns and I can go there without fear of arrest. But the issue isn’t Cuba. The issue, as I posted elsewhere, is that this was a diplomatic screwup on par with the umbrella.

What makes it a diplomatic screwup? That implies someone who matters will be mad about it. So who is mad about it besides you? And you’re only mad about it, not because you support the ancient policy, but because you get mad at anything obama does.

Actually, I suspect that there are already secret negotiations under way between the U.S. and Cuba, just as there were secret negotiations going on with Iran a year ago. By the time Obama leaves office, the embargo will be lifted and there will be direct flights to Havana from Miami and New York.

Obama is already screwing his own policies, which is actually fine with me. Kerry is being forced to tell the PLO not to read too much into this, as the PLO is claiming that Obama’s trip was a slap at Israel, and the PLO is also reading the opening to Iran as a sign that Israel will be sat on by the US. I don’t want to give the PLO any credit for being smart, but the point simply is that stupid people do change their behavior based upon what Obama does, and if Obama wants, god forbid, peace between Israel and the PLO based on negotiations, he needs to stop doing things that undermine that goal.

So, are the Israelis mad because Obama went to Mandela’s memorial service? Did they not send anyone? Are the Israelis hard-liners on Cuba? I didn’t know that, but if so, it helps me understand your outrage.

Forty countries boycotted the event in terms of sending high level delegations or expressing their disapproval by sending a figure head, much as Germany did. Israel was only one of the those countries. I know that a lot of people stayed away because folks like Mugabe and Castro were coming, and it is kind of ironic that Mugabe and Obama are viewed as peas in a pod. They are very much alike. But Mugabe is less vile than Obama.

For all the faux outrage voiced over shaking the “blood-soaked hand” of the leader of a state holding political prisoners, it might be fun to consider other countries whose leaders fall into the same category and whose hands must not be shaken:
China
Saudi Arabia
Egypt
Russia
Ukraine
Belarus
Iran
Iraq
Afghanistan
North Korea
Israel?
The U.S.? (can Obama shake his own hand?)

In fact, there is another interesting story I heard on BBC Africa yesterday. Africa is chock full of groups seeking autonomy from larger nations, much like the Ogoni are seeking independence from Nigeria. These “freedom fighters” were considered to be natural allies of Mandela and the ANC, until the ANC made it clear that they were communists, not nationalists. (Mandela’s words). The ANC invited the PLO to come to the love fest with full diplomatic recognition, even though the ANC won’t recognize indigenous African tribes. It wasn’t Israel who was pissed off about the PLO thing–it was the Africans, who are supposed to idolize Mandela and his fellow terrorists.

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